Evan Dando is squeezing a lot of work out of himself and his band the Lemonheads these days.
On Friday (Oct. 24), the group releases Love Chant, its first album of new material in 19 years. It follows the publication earlier this month of Dando’s Rumors of My Demise: A Memoir, and he reports he’s already at work on two more albums, a collection of Townes Van Zandt songs as well as the next Lemonheads set.
“I want to just keep working as much as possible ’cause we had such an extended stay away from doing anything — so why not do lots of things now?” Dando tells Billboard via Zoom from Nashville, where he’s recording the Van Zandt album. “I go through phases and stages — circles and cycles, as Willie Nelson would say. It’s a great feeling,” he continues, touching up a small painting during the discussion. “I have the urge to create like never before.”
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Though they’re out during the same month, Dando resists tying the memoir and the album too closely together. Love Chant’s personal (and at times autobiographical) lyrics, he says, “are what I always do,” so he feels the two projects “put the whole story in perspective a bit, but more in a general way.” Nevertheless, Dando continues, “I always dreamt of a time when I’d be putting out, like, two or three things all at once. I remember when Johnny Cash did that, three things at once or something, I thought, ‘yeah, that’s a way to go,’ especially when you’re a little bit older. Why not do a bunch of things at once. That’s really smart.”
Dando, who now resides in Brazil, says Love Chant — produced by Apollo Nove (Bebel Gilberto, Rita Lee, Seu Jorge) at A9 Audio in Sao Paulo — was drawn from a cache of more than 30 songs written during the years since the Lemonheads’ self-titled 2006 album. The Lou Reed-esque “The Key of Victory,” for instance, came from a groove on a tape Dando found of himself playing it for nearly 45 minutes. The buoyant “Cell Phone Blues,” meanwhile, has also been around for a number of years and is described by Dando as “one of those songs that was like a dare — ‘I dare you to put that one out!,’ and it wound up through various things we did in the studio, good enough to make it.” “Roky,” meanwhile, is a homage to the late psychedelic rock hero Roky Erickson that came from a sound check jam after Dando and the Lemonheads learned about Erickson’s death on May 31, 2019.
“I am especially proud of this record. We’ve never had so much fun making a record,” he says.
Ultimately, Dando hopes, “we’ll get a trio (of albums) out of this. I like to work in two- or three-record phases, like the (Rolling) Stones did when they went from Let It Bleed to Beggars Banquet to Sticky Fingers. (Love Chant)’s kind of like my Some Girls; that was their redemption, ’cause that record was so good, and this is the same way ’cause I think we got a bunch of records out of the one session, just like they did.”
As Love Chant comes out, Dando is still promoting Rumors of My Demise, a frank and illuminating account of his eventful life co-written with Jim Ruland. Dando pulled few punches. He addresses his upbringing, the impact of his parents’ divorce, his fascination with Charles Manson, sleepwalking issues, his struggles with pop stardom (and being a particularly good-looking pop star) after the Lemonheads hit it big during the early ‘90s, his battles with the music business and his well-documented drug use and the trainwrecks that caused in his life and career.
The book also delves into his creative process as well as Dando’s Forrest Gump-like relationships with assorted celebrities (Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Milla Jovovich, Elizabeth Moses and others) and a non-relationship with Courtney Love, despite, Dando writes, her attempts otherwise. Dando was particularly dismayed that onetime Nirvana member Pat Smear, a friend, told him that Kurt Cobain believed Dando and Love had an affair; “‘Oh God,’ I thought, ‘Kurt Cobain went to his death thinking I’d slept with Courtney.’ I wanted to be honest and talk about whatever,” Dando says. “I have a difficult time shutting my mouth, anyway, so the book — why any different? I guess I was always, in the back of my mind, ‘No, don’t hold back. Just say it and worry about the consequences later, and we’ll see what happens.’”
Dando — who married video director Antonia Teixeira last year — has given up hard drugs such as heroin and crack but still imbibes in the occasional marijuana, LSD and mushrooms. “I don’t know if being completely sober is something I ever want to be,” he confesses in Rumors of My Demise — the title a reference to the many rumors about Dando’s death that have surfaced over the years. Despite all the sordid experiences, however, he came away from the book feeling like “the story’s not over yet, which is nice.” And even in his worst years, he adds, he was confident that would be the case.
“In the back of my mind I was always, like, ‘I’m gonna get through this somehow,’” Dando says. “I had a feeling about it, and it did happen. I’ve been lucky that I generally get a lot of good will from people, people doing nice things for me. But I was literally underneath this tsunami of death, fate or whatever, and skipped out of the way just in time. But I knew in my heart, ‘I’m gonna get out of this situation,’ and I did.”
Among his conclusions, Dando claims he’s “not famous anymore” and writes about coming to terms with what he calls the “elder-statesman era” of the Lemonheads.” While he feels he’s “turned into the grunge relic I was always afraid I’d become,” he is unconditional about his gratitude for being able to make music his life’s work — then, and now. “We’ve been around so long that it’s almost like a grudging respect — like the ugly building or the old hooker that just won’t go away, so people have to deal with it,” Dando says. “I love that. It’s a very human quality, this dogged refusal to give up.”
Dando is now jonesing to write more. “I’d like to write a ‘real’ book about something besides myself,” he says — if not fiction than a proposed “field guide to soft drinks” or other music topics. “I called up (the publisher) once, last minute, and was like, ‘Could we change the whole thing? Can I just write about other bands?’ and they were like, ‘Uh…no,’” he recalls with a laugh. “But I wanted to be a writer since I was a teenager, so I hope there’s more.”
